奧
àoào

mysterious

← Back to history
approved by Prismcool · May 24, 2025, 07:07 PM · Reviewed by Prismcool on May 24, 2025, 07:07 PM

Final adjustments

Changed fields: hint, components

Original meaning: to store

Depicts two hands (𠬜) hiding rice (米) in a container. Based on the original meaning "to store". The meaning later shifted to "obscure", "profound" and "mysterious".

Components

◎
◎ Iconic component

Depicts a container.

米
米 Iconic component

Depicts grains of rice. Modern form looks like 釆.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 米 than it was in ancient scripts.
𠬜
𠬜 Iconic component

Depicts two hands.

Change in form
Due to historical stylistic changes, this component is less similar to 𠬜 than it was in ancient scripts.

Character Evolution

Seal form
Seal Western Han 202 BC-9 AD
Seal form
Seal Shuowen ~100 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Eastern Han 25-220 AD
Clerical form
Clerical Three Kingdoms (Cao Wei) 222-280 AD
Regular Modern

Historical Pronunciations

Middle ChineseOld ChineseGloss
Baxter-Sagart'awHʔˤuk-s southwest corner of a house
'juwkʔ(r)uk cove in the bank of a stream

說文解字

《說文》：“奧，宛也。室之西南隅。从宀，聲。”

Sources

Character origin
鄔可晶《釋「奧」》Wiktionary (JA)
Readings & variants
Unicode
Historical pronunciations
Baxter-Sagart
Historical images
Academia Sinica
Etymology
Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字)